Sweet Crete

Ok, got some more pictures for you to enjoy. Today we successfully negotiated the extremely hot and rocky fortress of Spinalonga, which was used to hold off the Turks, but then became a Leper colony until about 1950. It's a tiny island, but at one point over a thousand people lived there. Pretty crazy.

This is on the boat on the way to the island. Our hotel is behind us. If you were extremely fit, you could probably swim to the island...if Turks didn't throw scimitars at you first.

Then we went to Agios Nikolaos. Nice place, except on Sunday at 2pm, pretty much everything is closed. We found a nice place for Lunch...at the top of a very steep hill...the view behind us. Very hot...like, temperature-wise.

The restaurant had water that Kimmee liked a lot.

Then walked all around the perimeter of the port, stopped at like three Tavernas along the way and tried in vane to escape the heat with cold beer. And then we ate a great little place called Barkos. All in all, a LOT of walking was done today. Time to crash. Tomorrow, ATHENS!

In Dis Crete!

Today is our last full day in Crete before we head to Athens tomorrow. We have plans to raid the ancient fortress on the island outside our hotel before lunch...even if it took the Turks 30 years to overthrow it.

We're having more technical difficulties since Brian dropped his palm pilot in the sink...which happened to be clogged and which happened to be containing water at the time. Life happens. Hopefully we'll recitfy the situation soon. UPDATE: Found a memory card reader for 15 Euros. Problem solved.

We made a rebellious pilgrimage to the main town of Elounda last night, since our stuffy rich people hotel is cramping our style, and we ate at an oustanding little restaurant (Ferryman Taverna) right on the water, surrounded by begging stray cats, kids hawking flowers and glow bracelets, and our first offical piece of baklava this trip. Yay!

The town of Elounda is very pretty, although it does cater to the wealthy tourists in the area. Every Taxi is an expenisve Mercedes with leather seats and video screens in the backs of the chairs. Ridiculous. And we still had to share the cab with another load of people. That kind of seems to deflate the luxury if you ask me.

We're in Crete

After a 5 hour ferry trip from Santorini, we finally made it into Crete last night. Although the rooms are cheaper at this hotel, all of the perks are a little more expensive. We plan on taking advantage of the free champagne with breakfast to even out this fact. Behind us, the epic castle-island of Spinalonga!